The Core Blog » Core Journalhttp://blogs.bu.edu/core
news, events, and commentary from the Arts & Sciences Core CurriculumThu, 30 Jul 2015 15:14:23 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.5Recommended reading: “How to Build a Universe”http://blogs.bu.edu/core/2015/05/20/recommended-reading-how-to-build-a-universe/
http://blogs.bu.edu/core/2015/05/20/recommended-reading-how-to-build-a-universe/#commentsWed, 20 May 2015 13:16:11 +0000http://blogs.bu.edu/core/?p=4541If you’ve been driving yourself batty, scouring Amazon and the shelves of your local bookstores in search of a copy of Building Universes…for Dummies, we know why you’ve been unsuccessful: that particular book does not exist. However, if you’re dead-set on building your own universe, look no further than Daniel Hudon’s“How to Build a Universe.” This short work of imaginative, cosmological DIY was re-published in this year’s Core Journal, Volume XXIV. From the piece:

Consider first the type of universe you’d like to build…your main choices are finite and infinite….factor some advertising into your budget so that people can actually see the wonders of your universe. If you just broadcast the existence of your newly created universe to all and sundry, people will likely see you as a crackpot, so we don’t recommend that.

Hudon’s easy-to-follow, conversational tone provides a solid 101-foundation for those of us who really just want to make our own universes.Let us know if you have any luck in your own world-building experiments.

]]>http://blogs.bu.edu/core/2015/05/20/recommended-reading-how-to-build-a-universe/feed/0From the Core Journal: “The Analects of Prof. Nelson”http://blogs.bu.edu/core/2014/08/05/from-the-core-journal-the-analects-of-prof-nelson/
http://blogs.bu.edu/core/2014/08/05/from-the-core-journal-the-analects-of-prof-nelson/#commentsTue, 05 Aug 2014 21:20:00 +0000http://blogs.bu.edu/core/?p=4217These “Analects of Professor Nelson” were recorded during class discussion by Core student Matthew Spencer, and published in The Journal of the Core Curriculum, Vol. IX, Spring 2000:

The Professor said of Rousseau’s Confessions, “Boy, it’s so nitty, and it’s so gritty!” Only then did Matthew understand.

When Matthew thought he really understood Rousseau, the Professor said, “What’s the point of Rousseau’s life?” and Matthew could not speak for the rest of the day.

The Professor said to a student in the class, “You remind me of Satan, but not in a bad way.”

When the class thought that they had discussed everything, the Professor surprised them, saying “All we have to do now is figure out, who is Don Giovanni and why, and then we go home!”

For a confounded class, the best medicine is more and more confusion. Thus, the Professor said, after a dizzying discussion of Faust, “And otherwise, we only have to figure out the meaning of the universe, and then we’re done, okay?”

]]>http://blogs.bu.edu/core/2014/08/05/from-the-core-journal-the-analects-of-prof-nelson/feed/0Core Journal Now Available!http://blogs.bu.edu/core/2013/05/03/core-journal-now-available/
http://blogs.bu.edu/core/2013/05/03/core-journal-now-available/#commentsFri, 03 May 2013 21:21:58 +0000http://blogs.bu.edu/core/?p=2541The Spring 2013 Edition of the Core Curriculum Jounal is now available online, at bit.ly/1255au1 (click on Vol. XXII).

Congratulations to the staff – you have done a fantastic job!

If anyone would like a hard copy, feel free to send us your address at core@bu.edu and we will get to it!

They say: ‘After twenty years,
why does she still wait
for him? He must have
succumbed to Poseidon’s wrath.
his bleached bones,
on an unknown beach,
have become the pelican’s fare.’

To read this poem in its entirety, please visit the Core Office in search of the Spring 2007 issue of the Core Journal.

]]>http://blogs.bu.edu/core/2013/02/28/penelope-waiting-by-sassan-tabatabai/feed/0“The Sun and the Moon have no choice in their existence”http://blogs.bu.edu/core/2010/09/22/the-sun-and-the-moon-have-no-choice-in-their-existence/
http://blogs.bu.edu/core/2010/09/22/the-sun-and-the-moon-have-no-choice-in-their-existence/#commentsWed, 22 Sep 2010 20:40:40 +0000http://blogs.bu.edu/core/?p=108In her essay for the Spring 2010 issue of the Core Journal, Fabiana Cabral explicates Emily Dickinson’s poem, “It Sifts from Leaden Sieves,” in which–Cabral argues–Dickinson is declaring man’s mortality as a kind of freedom:

The Sun and the Moon have no choice in their existence. As eternal figures, they must remain in the sky until God sees fit to knock them down. But the snow, although doomed to melt and to cease to exist in its current state, is not fixed, and thus it is free.

The snow, like Man, can separate and condense at will; likewise, an individual can isolate itself and join others at will. What remains constant is its choice. Man and snow are the “figures” suspended in the “baseless Arc.” Yes, they are at the mercy of the juggler, and yet for that brief moment that they are “situated” in the air they stand alone, “baseless” and free: they manage to stand even though they are unsupported by eternity. Their transience allows them to do this, much like a juggler’s balls cannot remain standing alone in the air for long, but only for an instant. [from “The Twining of Volition with Transience in Dickinson’s Conception of Man,” published in Creó, the journal of the Arts & Sciences Core Curriculum, No. 19]

The journal committee will convene early in Fall 2010 to assemble an editorial team for the 20th issue. Keep an eye for notice, if you’d like to be involved!